Nestor Kirchner

Nestor Kirchner (25 February 1950-27 October 2010) was President of Argentina from 25 May 2003 to 10 December 2007, succeeding Eduardo Duhalde and preceding Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. He was a member of the Justicialist Party, and his left-wing populist Peronist ideology became known as "Kirchnerism".

Biography
Nestor Carlos Kirchner Jr. was born in Rio Gallegos, Santa Cruz, Argentina on 25 February 1950, and he met and married Cristina Fernandez while he was a law student. He opened a law firm at Rio Gallegos, but he was mostly inactive during the Dirty War. Kirchner went on to serve as Intendant of Rio Gallegos from 1987 to 1991 and Governor of Santa Cruz from 1991 to 2003, and, during the infighting within the Peronist Justicialist Party, Kirchner backed Eduardo Duhalde against the conservative and corrupt president Carlos Menem. In return, Duhalde backed Kirchner's presidential bid in 2003, during which Menem won the first round of the election, but resigned due to his fear that he would lose the runoff to Kirchner. Kirchner continued the economic policies of his predecessor, Duhalde, by retaining his Economy Minister Roberto Lavagna, and Argentina repaid the International Monetary Fund; Kirchner also appointed new Supreme Court justices after the previous ones resigned en masse out of fear of being impeached, declared the Dirty War amnesty unconstitutional and repealed it (earning him the support of human rights groups), and discontinued Argentina's alignment with the United States. By this time, Duhalde had broken with Kirchner, and he founded the conservative "Federal Peronism" faction in opposition to the populist Kirchner's left-wing Front for Victory faction. The 2005 midterm elections ended Duhalde's control of Buenos Aires and proved to be a major victory for Kirchner. Rather than seek re-election in 2007, Kirchner stepped aside in favor of his wife, who was successfully elected, and he became First Gentleman of Argentina. In 2009, he failed in his attempt to be elected a deputy for Buenos Aires, and he was involved in the 2013 "K-Money" corruption scandal. He died of cardiac arrest in 2010 at the age of 60 and received a state funeral.